My earliest lucid dreams often stemmed from my teenage nightmares... they weren't as bad as what you're going through Darcy, but they were enough.

Somehow I acquired the habit of shouting "WAKE UP!" whenever I found myself terrified in the dream. This was actually a moment of lucidity. Later I went on to confront the nightmare figures by asking questions like "What do you represent?"

This is something I learned from Stephen LaBerge's book which is like the Bible for Lucid Dreaming, I highly recommend it. Your first lesson would be to think WAKE UP whenever you have a horrible thought, think about your nightmares, or even re-run the worst part in your head the next morning. This will be habit-forming in your dreams too. It doesn't take much for this to kick in.

However, as has been mentioned I would seek other ways to calm your inner turmoil first, before learning to lucid dream. Conscious dreaming can will open a lot of doors to your subconscious. You could find you have overwhelming lucid dreams which reveal too much, and become scary, what some people call lucid nightmares.

Just a thought.

These dreams are all reflections of your insecurities and deepest fears. Many people go through stages of turmoil and uncertainty in their lives, so do not think there is anything wrong with you.

But if you want to have a greater sense of inner peace and stop these nightmares I think you need to address the issues at hand, through some kind of therapy. Personally, I would recommend something like http://greenesrelease.com/ which has helped me in the past to dispel night terror visions.